The sun is out at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- The rain is gone and there will be Sprint Cup racing today at Martinsville Speedway.

Yesterday was a mess and the Truck Series will have to wait until Monday to compete. The trucks that made the show are sitting in a tight little bunch in the infield, covered by tarps. Sprint Cup haulers had to back up a little to provide the room for those trucks, so quarters are cramped in the Cup garage.

Traffic this morning was, well, a mess.

What we had was a mini-Texas. Remember the first race at Texas Motor Speedway when a week of rain rendered parking lots useless and led that what still ranks at the mother of all NASCAR traffic jams? On a smaller scale, that's what happened this morning here.

Almost all of the available parking at Martinsville is unpaved, and some of it is at the bottom of some pretty big hills. Those areas are mud bogs and only vehicles with four-wheel drive were allowed in those areas.

That backed everything WAY up. It took me about an hour and 45 minutes to go the final 2 miles to the track and then get from U.S. 220 to the media parking lot at the bottom of the hill behind Turn 4. My demon-possessed car shut off completely on me once and just wouldn't go. I was sitting there trying to figure out what I was going to do to get it out of the way but it started back up and I was able to get where I needed to be. It's 50-50 whether she'll be functional for the ride home tonight, but what a race day without a little drama?

I've said this before and I am sure I will say it again, but race fans just never cease to amaze me. I am getting paid to be here today. If I had left my house this morning intending to get to the track and buy one of the tickets that were left for this race, I know I would have turned around and headed back home long before I finally got parked.

Even the parking lots that are open are muddy and there's nothing the track could have done about that. It didn't quit raining until sometime overnight and by daybreak people were trying to get here. That leaves no time to put down gravel or straw or anything to try to make the going less sloppy. But as I write this it's noon and people are still making their way toward the track.